This invention relates to a paper web feed device in a cigarette production machine.
In cigarette production machines, it is known to form the outer cigarette covering from one or more paper webs fed by means of a continuous feed device through a loading station, in which a continuous stream of shredded tobacco is fed onto each web.
In the said known feed devices, each paper web is advanced through said loading station supported by a conveyor, immediately upstream of which there is disposed a suction roller arranged to give the web the necessary forward thrust for unwinding the web from a reel and for passing it, before reaching said conveyor, through a series of devices comprising inter alia a printing unit which prints inscriptions on the web.
The printing units used in production machines normally suffer from starting difficulties in the sense that when production is resumed after each stoppage of the production machine, the print is defective for a time period which is certainly of limited duration but is such as to result in the production of some thousands of defective cigarettes, which have to be discarded and then destroyed in order to recover the tobacco used in them.